Labour's rightward slide
International Viewpoint1990sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
After 30 months in power, Tony Blair and his right-wing New Labour government are stronger than ever. The opposition Conservatives are seriously divided over the European Union. Alan Thornett looks at the recent conferences of Labour, the Conservatives, and the Trade Union Congress.
The September 1999 TUC conference was the most right-wing of modern times. It marked a new stage in the domination of New Labour over the unions. Not just because union leaders support what New Labour is doing, but because of the way they have embraced "social partnership" — the most dangerous form of class collaboration to be inflicted on the British trade union movement since the break with Liberalism at the beginning of the century. Social partnership commits the unions to support for the requirements of the employers without any of the elements of compromise evident in such schemes in the past.
In his speech to the trade union conference, Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair downplayed his long-term ambition of breaking the historic link between the unions and the Labour Party (Blair sees this as essential if Labour is to become the principal party of British capitalism). But, for the moment, he reassured unionists "You are now welcome back into number 10 Downing Street" (the Prime Minister's residence), But it will "not be beer and sandwiches," (famously served at meetings between Labour Prime Ministers and TUC leaders in the 1970s), he warned. "Just tea".
New Labour has not just distanced itself from the unions. It has built a completely new relationship with the employers. For Blair, New Labour's relationship with the employers is infinitely more important than its relationship with the unions. Blair has always considered the trade unions an obstacle to his plans and ambitions.
This new relationship marks a big defeat for any kind of militant, class based, trade unionism and a victory for the Blairite project. We in new Labour have our 'third way', and you in the unions have your 'third way,' Blair said. He was talking of the TUC's commitment to partnership with the employers. TUC General Secretary John Monks told the conference that "the days of 'them-and-us' and industrial confrontation are over".
The most extreme proposals for social partnership came from (Sir) Ken Jackson of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (a major TUC union). Jackson argued that the TUC should disband its own annual conference in favour of a biannual conference organised jointly with the employers organisation, the Confederation of British Industry!
Not a single heavyweight union leader used the TUC conference, to speak out against social partnership. Most of them are already busily negotiating partnership agreements, often involving no-strike deals, and clauses tying the unions to the interests of the employers.
Many employers are looking to such deals to offset the possibility of extended union recognition under Blair's new Employment Relations Act, which regulates union recognition ballots in workplaces. If they are going to have to recognise unions more often, they would rather do so under a partnership deal and with the union most committed to social partnership. Recent examples of this kind of 'sweetheart' deal include Unilever, Barclay's Bank, Tesco, Littlewoods and the Legal and General Building Society.
Social Partnership was not the only right-wing theme at this conference. When it came to the European Union and the single currency (EMU) the conference was well to the right of New Labour. The conference rejected the New Labour line of "wait until the conditions are right" and voted to enter EMU as fast as possible. Those major unions more-or-less opposed to EMU mounted no serious opposition, and allowed the new policy to be adopted! Britain's biggest union UNISON had a clear policy against EMU. But their delegation abstained in the vote. This gave the pro-EMU unions a majority of votes.
Other major unions like the Transport and general Workers Union (TGWU) suddenly accepted current New Labour policy. General Secretary Bill Morris reinterpreted TGWU's opposition to EMU as meaning "we should not go in until the economic conditions are right".
The TUC leaders are prepared to back EMU in order to pursue their vision of the European social model. Yet the European social model is evaporating even as they clamour to join it. They may not of noticed, but the Thatcherite agenda of deregulation and privatisation is being enforced across Europe by Social democratic parties, who are in government in 13 of the 15 EU countries. By the time Britain enters EMU, what will remain of the elusive European social model?
The main resistance to the right-wing agenda emerged in a debate on the relationship between new Labour and the unions. Ken Cameron, left-wing leader of the Fire Brigades Union, caused consternation when he proposed that the unions take the lead in breaking the link with New Labour! He argued that since "the Labour Party no longer sees us as their natural allies, we can no longer rely on them to be our natural allies". The trade unions, he said, contribute £6m (US$9.5m) a year to Labour Party funds—over 30% of the party's total income. "Why should we keep on signing cheques to a party which no longer represents us?" Cameron asked. "Why don't we give it to organisations and candidates who promote our interests?"
The general disaffiliation of unions from the Labour Party would be a mistake. But this issue won't go away. The FBU is not the only union which is looking at ways of giving some money to non-Labour organisations or candidates which support the aims of the union. But massive disaffiliation would only make sense if it was linked to the development of a political alternative to Blairism.
Soft left
The conference also underlined the serious crisis of the soft left. This was shown in their capitulation on the question of social partnership, in their collapse before the John Monks line on EMU and in their refusal to challenge the employers at almost any level.
Their inability to develop any independent perspective is personified in the decision of Rodney Bickerstaff (54) to retire as General Secretary of UNISON, the country's biggest union. In the past leaders like Bickerstaff would have clung determinedly to such positions. But the continuing historic low level of strike struggles and the domination of Blairism in the Labour Party and the unions have dramatically reduced the role that leaders like Bickerstaff can play. They have no intention of challenging Blairism, and there are no militant struggles for them to mediate.
The hard left also has its difficulties in the unions. Most have not grasped the need for a conscious struggle against social partnership. Most of the broad left organisations in the individual unions are weaker than a year or two ago. There is an urgent need for a cross-union left which can seek to coordinate a fight-back as well as conducting a political struggle against social partnership.
Hard Labour
The TUC conference was bad for the left. But there was worse to come at the Labour Party conference itself. Blair could hardly have been more dominant and the left (there is still a left but it is much weakened) more invisible.
New Labour strategists have clearly already concluded that they are going to win the next election in two years time—and barring major developments such as severe economic crisis they are probably right. Blair therefore concentrated on developing the next stage of his project. The class war, he proclaimed, was over. Instead, he was going to declare war on "the conservatives of the right and of the left" who are standing in the way of New Labour "modernisation".
Ever since he abolished Clause 4 of the Labour Party constitution (which called for the nationalisation of the means of production), Blair has been trying to heal the spilt between labourism and liberalism at the turn of the century. He has now gone even further, and called for the pro-EU, "one nation" section of the Conservative Party to leave their hard-right comrades and join New Labour! Blair specifically mentioned Former Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke and former Tory Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine.
Since then Blair has formed a new, and unprecedented, campaigning alliance with Clarke and Heseltine (and the leader of the Liberal Democrats) in favour of the EU and in favour of entry into EMU "when the time is right"—which in reality means as soon as they think they can win a referendum on it.
The formation of this alliance has severely exacerbated the deep divide on EU questions inside the Conservative Party. In fact, the October party conference confirmed that the 'Tories' are verging on the edge of a formal split.
Conference debates showed that the Party has moved sharply to the right. Xenophobia ruled the day—the main themes were defending fox hunting (which Blair wants to ban), defending the pound (against EMU membership), and, when Margaret Thatcher took the floor, defending the Chilean dictator Pinochet against extradition!
The Tories are being torn apart by a combination of the success of Blairism in winning the middle ground of English (though not Scottish) politics, and the Conservatives own long-standing divisions over Europe. One-nation Tories no longer find the Tory Party habitable and feel much closer to Blair and New Labour. In fact what Blair says today about the EU is what the one-nation Tories have been saying for years.
Shortly after the 'conference season,' Blair carried out an audacious government reshuffle. Nothing shows Blair's personal authority more than the decision to bring Peter Mandelson back after only 10 months out of the government (following a financial scandal). At the same time Blair expelled most of the surviving remnants of old Labour in the government team, and established a team modelled almost entirely in his own image. He feels no need to compromise with anyone in the Labour leadership. There have only been the most muted protests at his actions from within the party. Most of the media strongly approved his changes, including his resurrection of Mandelson—a key architect of New Labour, and Blair's closest confidantes.
The situation for the left in the Labour Party will get worse for the left. Under Blair's new rules, the party's National Executive approves or rejects all the party's parliamentary candidates. They will use political criteria—loyalty to the Blairite project.
Worse is to come…
The left-wing Campaign Group of Labour MPs, who have kept their heads down for most of the time Blair has been in office. But their key members are reportedly on a hit-list, and will not be reselected as parliamentary candidates. (Though this will provoke resistance from deselected MPs and their local supporters, who traditionally controlled the selection of parliamentary candidates.
In 2000, the party will be reorganised at the constituency level, where the left, and the link with the unions, has been strongest. Local trade unions have had the right to send delegates to local general management committees of the Labour Party. The left in the party called this the "open valve" between the party and the unions. But it is to be severely neutered. Local committees will meet every three months instead of every month, and their decision making powers will be severely limited. Meetings will be open to all members, rather than delegate based. This means the end of representative democracy inside the Labour Party.
This is probably Blair's biggest single "reform" since he started to transform the Labour Party, certainly as far as its effects on the rank and file members is concerned. There could be significant opposition. Unfortunately, by the time the proposals get to next years conference they are likely to have been agreed by some form of referendum and the conference will have little choice in the matter.
Blair's end-game is to reshape the Labour Party into the first party of the British bourgeoisie, replacing the Conservatives. His second objective is to ensure that, when the long downturn in the level of strike struggles ends, any new radicalisation will not easily find expression inside the Party.
There is still a fight to be had inside the Labour Party. But the main elements of a fight-back are likely to come from the unions and/or the social movements. An upturn in social struggle might lead to a regeneration of the left in the Labour Party. But the Party is not where the struggle will start. This means that the priorities should be strengthening the left in the unions, and strengthening the intervention of the left in the campaigns and the social movements.